Saturday, December 06, 2008

JACKSON, MISS. — A convenience store clerk chased down a man and shot him dead over a case of beer this summer and was charged with murder. A week later, a clerk at another Jackson convenience store followed and fatally shot a man he said tried to rob him, and authorities let him go without charges.Police say the robber in the second case was armed, while the man accused of stealing beer was not.Just the same, the legal plights of the two clerks highlight the uncertain impact of National Rifle Association-backed laws sweeping the nation that make it easier to justify shooting in self-defense.

I know there are a lot of people who are squeamish about killing over property, but ultimately I think something like what the clerk did in the first case isn't entirely a bad thing. If actions like that cause other criminals to think twice about taking other people's property, then when it's all said and done a lot of good has been done for society. Many will say it's "just stuff" or "a bag of loot," as Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg so self-righteously put it, but at the heart it's a lot more than that. When you get right down to it, taking someone else's property is a violation of their personal sovereignty, and letting said violations go unchallenged and/or unpunished constitutes a dangerous undermining of the social contract that keeps us from descending back into anarchy and tribal war. I know such a perspective is beyond many in the mainstream media and certain advocacy groups, but I bet most of us over in flyover country grasp it quite well.

Unorganized Militia Propaganda Corps

About Me

I am a very opinionated guy, Texan and quite proud of it. I lean toward the right politically but have a few libertarian tendencies that my conservative brothers and sisters might not agree with. I like guns, old country music and a lot of other things.

Essential Reading

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty -- so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator -- and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.-- Cesare Beccaria, in On Crimes And Punishments, later quoted by Thomas Jefferson

Echo

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.-- Alexander Hamilton